Player Quotes - 9/9

Postgame quotes from Browns players following the 2012 season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles.

(On his first game as an NFL quarterback)- “Obviously, you know, not as expected. I take a lot of pride in playing better than that and I put our team in some difficult situations. My hat’s off to this defense. Our defense gave us every chance to win and offensively, myself included, took away from that. So, obviously I’m down right now, I expect to play better than that, I think more of myself than that. I put ourselves in harms way, but I thought our defense played plenty good enough to give us a chance to win, but it just didn’t work out.”

(On crediting the Eagles defense versus placing blame on himself)- “Well first and foremost, you have to give those guys a little credit, or a lot of credit. That’s a really good football team. They challenged us, played a lot of man-to-man, and there were a lot of times where there was really nowhere to go with the football. You know I tried taking a shot down the field twice on Cromartie (CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie). He’s a 6’2” corner, a great player, real long and he got me twice. So I’m just trying to take shots, you know Travis (WR Travis Benjamin) is a great player and I have a lot of confidence in all my guys around me but that’s a good defense. They didn’t give me a lot throughout the day.”

(On the final drive when the Browns were trailing 17-16)- “Again, they played man-to-man, but I was excited. We practice that two minute drill in practice and I knew the situation, we needed a field goal. Phil (K Phil Dawson) is good; we had to get to the 35, 37 yard line to give us a chance to try to kick the field goal. Mo (WR Mohamed Massaquoi) ran a speed move just like he was supposed to and the ball slipped and took off on me and happened to go right down to the Eagles. Like I said, Mo was doing everything he could, the ball just took off on me and bad things are always going to happen when that happens.”

(On being to hyped up on the over throw to Massaquoi on the first drive of the game)- “Yeah, no doubt. I told him that. I was jacked up and had a lot of adrenaline. I didn’t even feel like I threw that ball. When it left my hand I thought I under threw it and the ball just took off. I had a little bit of adrenaline going early on, but I definitely settled down. I just missed a couple throws. That one and the one to Alex (TE Alex Smith) in the right corner of the end zone. You know I got hit, but that’s not really an excuse. I’ve got to make that throw. I make that throw ten times out of ten. But yeah, the first one I was a little amped.”

(On handling losing a close game)- “As an athlete, even though you wish your going to be all up, there are going to be some downs. Fortunately for me, obviously I have had games where I haven’t played as well but I felt like I have given my team a chance to win. And today, there were times where I didn’t really do that. That’s the part that gets to me the most. I really take a lot of pride in giving whatever it is I’m asked of. If I throw five touchdowns, no interceptions or four interceptions, no touchdowns, I feel like I want to give my team a chance to win. Like I said, it’s a long year, it’s a long season. Obviously I don’t want anyone to remember the first one because we’re going to turnaround and play again in seven days and this one is in the past. Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about it. It stings. It’s going to sting for a few days. Part of my makeup is that I have a pretty short memory and I’m not going top let anything get to me. I’m going to continue to work, bust my tail and give this team a chance to win.”

(On what else the defense could have done today)- “Like I’ve told everybody else, your only job is to do yours. You know we’ve got eleven guys on the field, eleven guys doing their own job. That’s how you make plays. That’s how it’s going to be, from here to the end of the season. There’s no special potion- just know your responsibilities and do your job.”

(On making Michael Vick look bad today)- “Michael Vick is a good quarterback. You know, like I said I keep saying and I’ll probably be saying for 18 weeks; do your job. Plain and simple- nothing hard. We’re just going to play our techniques right, do our responsibilities. Plays will come to us.”

(On finishing a lot of hits on Michael Vick)- “That’s just how we play. DQ [D’Qwell Jackson] said it best; we’re just trying to pick an identity for ourselves. We’ve got to be a good defense- we’ve got to create an identity. Get the ball, rush the quarterback, make plays.”

(On the linebackers involvement on drops)- “Watching films. You know they run a lot of deep stuff. Dropping shallow isn’t going to help, you know you’ve got to get a little deeper. You get a little deeper and read the quarterback. I’ve said it before- do your job, plays come to you.”

(On his first NFL interception)- “Well, Michael Vick, we had pressure on him. He scrambled out and tried to throw across his body and overthrew his receiver. It came right to me. You can’t make a big play yourself; it comes to you. Guys that try to make big plays, try to do too much. You’ve got to wait for it to come to you. That’s what happened today. I got my first pick. I’m kind of excited right now.”

(On the defense forcing four interceptions)- “No, obviously you want to keep him [Vick] in the pocket. Like I said, the secondary played well. But they [Philadelphia] made plays, I mean we got to hold them up a little more and get more hits in. I think we only had one sack, we’ve got to get more than that every week.”

(On playing against LeSean McCoy)- “I mean it’s scary. I remember sitting in front of him and watching Reggie Bush and he is better than Reggie Bush in my eyes. He is explosive; everybody got around and I think we did a pretty good job against him, tacking him. Obviously he is going to make plays. Good luck to them, and good luck to him as well.”

(On what to say to Brandon Weeden after his first NFL start)- “I think he played well, you just have to go back and get in work. A first game against a great defense, I’m not going to lie they are a good defense. I mean he did a pretty good job, offense did okay. We just have to step up in the red zone and stuff like that. We just have to put up points and those have to count.”

LB D’Qwell Jackson

(On what he feels could be different about this team) – “The good thing about it, as I walked into the locker room I saw a lot of guys that you could tell it meant something to them. The younger guys, they come from programs where they won and they’re not used to it and it’s actually a good thing. A lot of those guys were upset about losing. I thought on both sides of the ball we played a hard fought game. To come up short, yes I’ve been through it enough so what I can do on my end is teach the younger guys that we have 15 more weeks and take the positives out of this game. The positives being that they’re a good football team. Philadelphia is a good football team and some people have them playing in the Super Bowl so we could take something away from it. I give those guys a lot of credit. They made the plays when they needed to make it. We had a chance towards the end, the defense, but they made the play (and) we didn’t. It’s early and we still have a lot to learn from the tape and just move forward. We have a long season ahead of us, but today, you hate to lose. But there are a lot of positives out of it.”

(On making Michael Vick uncomfortable today) – “We watched a ton of film with coaches and players and we knew certain things we could take advantage of once we started getting to him early, I think it carried on throughout the game. Once he escaped the pocket, that’s where he made a ton of his plays and we kept him in for the most part and kept him on the run. That’s what we tried to do throughout the game, just put pressure on him as much as we could.”

(On if he was surprised Philadelphia didn’t run the ball more than they did) – “That’s not their identity. They’re a team that likes to pass the ball and occasional screens and draws, but that’s not who they are. We knew that coming into it. We knew we had to keep our eyes on (LeSean) McCoy. He has a lot of touches with the screens and draws.”

(On his thoughts on how the young linebackers played today) – “I think they rose to the occasion. I think those guys had put in the time and we all know it. Whatever you put in you get out of it and those guys have been tremendous from the start. They had a lot of pressure on them. I can remember my first game. I don’t remember it because it was a blur, but those guys played well, Craig (Robertson) and L.J. (Fort).They stepped up and it’s a good sign for us.”

(On if the dropped interception in the fourth quarter reinforced to the young guys how slim the margin of error is) – “No doubt, and that you have to be prepared every snap, every game. Hey, you might have missed a play this week, you learn from it. You may make it next week, but you will have another opportunity to make that play. I think it’s a great learning experience for them.”

(On if he played more than anticipated)- “Coach told me it was just more game plan. I seemed to play a lot and I felt pretty good out there. I felt pretty good week at practice. I was ready to play.”

(On how his first NFL game went)- “For the first game, I think it went okay. It could’ve been better. As far as keeping my head strong, I think I played as good as I could have for the first game. I kept fighting the whole game, as a team we kept fighting. We’ve got to be more consistent and help our defense out.”

(On if it was frustrating not having space to run)- “It would get frustrating at times, but at the same time you’ve got to think that not every play is going to be perfect. As long as you play your play and give off what you can. You can only control the things you can control. Our offensive line fought real hard today, there were some mistakes that we all made, and we’re behind them 100 percent. I know they’re behind me 100 percent. I have to make people miss and I didn’t make people miss like I usually do, so I have to get on my job.”

(On how missing the preseason affected him)- “Like I said, I was always in the film room studying. From the situation we came from the game gets a tad bit faster. It’s about the same for real, but at the same time it’s different when you’re out on the field. I think it was a pretty good day for us trying to get used to the pro-system.”

(On pressuring Vick) - “I mean, we called a great game as a defense. We made some great calls so we could get to the quarterback. Jabaal Sheard, he did a lot in there to help me get free, so I did my best to get around and put a hit on him.”

(On Vicks’ leading the team downfield at the end of the 1st half and end of the game) - “I mean, this is football. You know, one side of the ball is going to make plays and the other side is going to make plays. It’s a hard grind, the whole quarter and, just couldn’t pull it out at the end.”

(On roughing the passer call late in the game) - “I mean it’s disappointing and at the same time I just want to put a hit on him. I probably shouldn’t have slammed him into the ground and put our defense in that position. But I’m just trying to go one hundred percent and make something happen.”

(On what more could have been done on defense) - “Well, I gave up a touchdown in the first half so I could have definitely done a lot better on that. But I think as a whole unit, our defense did really well. We fought the whole game until the end and we made a whole lot of plays and it just showed how good our defense really is.”

(On keeping pressure on Vick) - “Yeah, I even give a lot of credit to our defensive line, I mean they were in there. Even if he got the ball off, he was getting hit. It wasn’t anything dirty, as soon as he was releasing, they were in there and he was off in timing and they were just coming through. Rubin, JP, Frost, Jabaal, all of them they were just doing a really good job of getting pressure on him. He wasn’t, he didn’t look comfortable back there; he wasn’t comfortable. So if he was throwing off his back foot or not throwing on time, it’s giving us a chance to make plays on the ball.”

(On losing even after multiple forced turnovers) - “Yeah, but we didn’t so it just shows that we have to make up a little more plays. I feel like we know the defense, we did really, really well. But it was still points, spots, stuff that we gave up. We’re never going to ever be against our offense. Whatever they do out there, we all know they’re fighting, they’re trying to get it. We put it all on us, like my pick, I should have scored. We just have to look at like that way sometimes.”